While the sport of catching fish by means of a conventional baited hook is a pleasant past time, it is time-consuming and requires constant presence of the fisherman. It also normally produces only one fish per hook. The use of trot lines, which are suspended below water with a plurality of hooks increases, of course, the productivity of the catch and does not require constant attendance. Use also is made of nets stretched across bodies of water to entrap fish at their gills. Such nets have a mesh which is somewhat selective in that it allows very small fingerlings to pass through, and yet will catch the larger fish of the species as they insert their heads through the net openings. Since the gills are normally forward of the largest part of the fish's body, the fish will protrude the gill-bearing portion of the head through the opening in the netting until such time as the netting comes into contact with the fish's body. Generally, at this point, fish will extend their gills and attempt to back off at which point the gills then become entangled with the twine or line forming the mesh. The fish cannot move forward because the mesh is too small to permit passage of the body, and the fish cannot move backward because its gills catch in the netting. Such gill nets are usually of a great length and have floats mounted along a float or cork line, and have weights along the bottom anchor line in order to keep them substantially vertical in the water.
Portable type fish traps generally consist of a cylindrical arrangement which lies with its long axis parallel to the current flow, the ends each having a conical inwardly extending form so that the fish may swim into the conical opening, but once inside the trap appear to be unable to find the opening through which they entered and are thus retained within the trap. This type of fish trap is disclosed U.S. Pat. No. 3,800,464.
Italian Pat. No. 639,323 discloses a portable fish catcher of generally cylindrical form which is suspended below the surface of the water from floats. The fish catcher disclosed herein utilizes the principal of gill net but each end has a plurality of substantially rigid members spaced across the end. The members have protrusions thereon which are for the prupose of catching the fish by the gills once the head has protruded through the members. The device disclosed in this patent is rigid both as to the end members as well as the interconnecting walls and the gilling members.